Race Issues

How does race affect your workplace? In this episode of HBR’s advice podcast, Dear HBR:, cohosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Tina Opie, a management professor at Babson College. They talk through what to do when your company’s board is not diverse, promotions favor some people more than others, or you want to have more conversations about race at the office.

Listen to more episodes and find out how to subscribe on the Dear HBR: page. Email your questions about your workplace dilemmas to Dan and Alison at dearhbr@hbr.org.

From Alison and Dan’s reading list for this episode:

HBR: Diversity and Authenticity by Katherine W. Phillips, Tracy L. Dumas, and Nancy P. Rothbard — “Simply hiring members of a minority group won’t ensure that they feel comfortable or equipped to build the relationships necessary for advancement. And as companies invest in mentorship and sponsorship programs, making these relationships flourish among workers of differing races may require special effort.”

HBR: How Managers Can Promote Healthy Discussions About Race by Kira Hudson Banks — “Many white people may avoid conversations about race out of fear of ‘saying the wrong thing.’ And many people of color in predominantly white companies may avoid these conversations out of fear of being seen as a complainer — or worse. But pretending the elephant in the room isn’t there won’t make it go away.”

HBR: A Question of Color: A Debate on Race in the U.S. Workplace by David A. Thomas and Suzy Wetlaufer — “You can’t underestimate the power of professional networks, because when they are positively focused, you no longer feel alone or isolated. You are connected with people of power in the organization in a way you have never been before. Instead of always feeling like an outsider, you feel as if you belong. You are not alone, and that can be tremendously helpful both personally and professionally.”

HBR: The Costs of Racial “Color Blindness” by Michael I. Norton and Evan Apfelbaum — “Rather than avoiding race, smart companies deal with it head-on—and they recognize that ‘embracing diversity’ means recognizing all races, including the majority one, to avoid showing preference or creating a backlash. For example, Time Warner’s annual diversity summit isn’t just for people of color (or women)—it’s populated by white males, too. Talking about race can feel awkward, but over time more companies will discover that doing so is usually better than pretending it doesn’t exist.”

ALISON BEARD: And I’m Alison Beard. Work can be frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be. We don’t need to let the conflicts get us down.

DAN MCGINN: That’s where Dear HBR: comes in. We take your questions, look at the research, talk to the experts, and help you move forward.

ALISON BEARD: Today we’re answering your questions about dealing with racism in the workplace. And here to help us sort through those issues is Tina Opie. She’s a management professor at Babson College. Tina, thanks so much for coming on the show.

TINA OPIE: Thanks for having me.

ALISON BEARD: So have you, yourself, experienced racism in the workplace?

TINA OPIE: Yes, I have. That’s a way to get us started right off the bat. I have. I’ve experienced racism as a student, as well as a banker, a management consultant and as a professor. And what I would say is the common denominator through all of those experiences is that when people see me, they didn’t expect me to be in whatever role I was in at that time.

ALISON BEARD: How hard is it to start these conversations, making the decision, I’m calling this out right now?

TINA OPIE: Well, sometimes I’m not in the mood. However, I feel compelled in many instances to broach the conversation because I’m thinking about my organization. I love where I work. I want it to be the best that it can be. And that means calling out those behaviors.

ALISON BEARD: Let’s jump to our first question.

DAN MCGINN: Dear HBR: I’m an African man currently working in South Africa. It’s a country with a difficult and oppressive past. The white minority rules for centuries. We now find ourselves with government policies and laws that seek to redress this painful past and provide equal opportunities for all racial groups, but also to accelerate inclusion of blacks in managerial and executive positions, especially black women. Man of our large companies, such as banks, mines, and law firms, are controlled and managed by the white minority. These companies heavily recruit historically disadvantaged groups. There is huge pressure now on publicly listed companies to execute transformation. However, in the private sector, transformation remains a challenge. There is huge pressure now on publicly listed companies to put members of historically disadvantaged groups into executive positions. However, in the private sector, transformation remains a challenge. How do black executives who are part of a white-dominated board of a private company engage in this issue with the board? How can they transform their organization without risk of prejudice and career limiting repercussions?

ALISON BEARD: Tina, what do you think?

TINA OPIE: I would be very interested in how he might influence individuals on the board. What’s the business case for hiring people? I mean, it’s a really powerful lever at sometimes. So if you can go to the board and say, listen, we want to increase our market presence. A good way to do that is to have more people who look like our consumers in the company.

ALISON BEARD: But he talks about the risk of prejudice and career limiting repercussions. Doesn’t all the research show that if you are a minority, and you’re advocating for diversity, you’re penalized much more than a white many would be if he did the same thing?

TINA OPIE: Yes. And so, maybe you’re also looking for an ally on the board. I have been known in some of my faculty meetings to write down a note and pass it to one of my white male allies. I won’t mention his name on air, but he knows who he is. And he’ll say it, verbatim, because we know that if it comes from him, it will be received in a totally different way. Now, everybody knows the secret. [LAUGHTER] I shouldn’t have just aired that. But maybe you find an ally. Many of the most important board decisions don’t happen in the boardroom. They happen beforehand.

DAN MCGINN: Yeah, one of the questions I had, when I read this letter, was, what does this board look like? We published research that doesn’t have anything to do with race, but it does have to do with boardroom dynamics. And one of the things they found is that if you have one director with a certain kind of background, it might not influence a whole lot. If you have two, it still might not influence a lot. There seems to be a magic number of three. So in this instance, I would ask him, are you the only black man on the board? And if you are, the short-term goal might be to get towards three black directors.

ALISON BEARD: I think that’s hard, though, if there is no pipeline of black executives.

TINA OPIE: Well, so, I would push for inclusion. When we talk about numeric representation, the assumption is that if there are three black people on the board, that they all have similar values. We have a saying, not all skin folk are kinfolk. Just because you have three black people in the boardroom does not mean that you’re going to have three voices that are advocating for diversity, inclusion, and equity of black people. That doesn’t negate the magic number of three. It’s just that he would need to be mindful of who he recruited to make sure that these were people who would actually be hoping to advance diversity, inclusion, and equity.

ALISON BEARD: And on the flip side of that, even if he’s unable to recruit two more executives, there will be white people on the board who actually do believe in diversity and inclusion and want to help him in this.

TINA OPIE: Yes.

DAN MCGINN: One of the other arguments I thought he might think about is the idea that this is a private sector company right now. But one of the things that private sector companies often think about is setting themselves up and preparing for the day when they might want to go public. And there are things you do to prepare yourself for the regulatory, for the governance, but also for the transparency that comes from being a public company. So part of his argument for why these changes need to be made is, look, you know, we’re going to, at some point we’re going to want to go to the next level here, and when we do, this will be something that becomes important very quickly. So it’s not something you can change overnight. So let’s start now.

ALISON BEARD: We published a piece over 20 years ago, which was a roundtable of minority executives in the United States, and I was struck by a lot of their comments. One was sort of balancing this idea of being an advocate for your cause. But then also your role as a corporate citizen, and Dan, that suggestion does a great job of blending both of those two. You know, and what you said earlier, Tina, about the business case, you know, it’s sort of, I’m doing this not just because I would like to see more people like me around here. I’m doing this because it’s the best thing for the company. The other thing that really stood out for me, one of the executives said: the only thing I wish I’d done is hit the walls harder and faster and face the issues a lot quicker. Tina, what do you think about that sense of urgency? Should this, should our letter writer feel that sense of urgency?

TINA OPIE: I think all of us should feel a sense of urgency. I do not think that people understand how much brilliance could be harnessed if we were just more open to people who look and think differently than we do. Dan, I want to go back to your point earlier you raised about how this private company may eventually want to become public. So let’s just think about the tagline, or an advertising or a PR company, where, listen, South Africa ended apartheid at a societal level. However, corporate apartheid is still happening. What would it look like if we became the organization known for ending corporate apartheid? And I’m calling it that because it really looks that way, for better or for worse, human beings, we like those taglines. So when I say corporate apartheid, and your eyes sort of lit up, it’s just a way of describing a phenomenon that I think could catch on with the board, where they might want to become leaders, which could then contribute to a competitive advantage in their field.

DAN MCGINN: Yeah, what I love about that is that one can think about racism on lots of different levels, and as you point out earlier in the conversation, it really is a moral issue. However, we all have experience in watching companies not do the right thing in all sorts of different realms. What you’re doing is sort of transferring it into a risk mitigation kind of context.

TINA OPIE: When you say that it’s a risk mitigation, in psychology that’s sort of avoidance. You’re trying to avoid the negative. But I’m also saying there’s an approach opportunity here, which is, let’s end corporate Apartheid. Let’s develop a reputation and a name for ourselves as being these trailblazers in this particular way.

ALISON BEARD: So both of you think it would be a great idea for him to recruit more black executives to this board. How should he go about doing that?

DAN MCGINN: I think it depends a lot on the governance system and the way that board operates. And I don’t know a lot about governance in South Africa. In fact, I know nothing about governance in South Africa.

TINA OPIE: Me either.

DAN MCGINN: In the United States, the CEO and the chairman have a lot of influence over who gets onto the board. Sometimes there are recruiters who play a heavy role in it, so making sure that he has a good relationship with those people and makes his views known, seems important to me. Often times existing directors are brought in to interview prospective directors. He doesn’t need to just focus on the board, either. If they have vice presidential openings at this company, he should be actively working his network. And trying to bring people that he respects into this organization. That’s only going to help him.

ALISON BEARD: And I think if he’s not already in a network of black executives or black board directors in his city, then that is a good place to start, like joining one of those professional organizations and reaching out to the community.

TINA OPIE: Yeah, and you know what, Alison, I think it’s actually good for him to join a network like that, but also maybe to create a network of allies that are not black. Because then he’d be able to pull information from that network back to the black executives and potentially influence the private sector board where he is.

ALISON BEARD: So Dan, what are we telling him?

DAN MCGINN: We think that as the, what sounds like the sole black member of the board, or at least one of the very few black members of the board, the strongest tool he has to try to create change in this privately held organization is to recruit and get more black members on the board with him. We also think he should be attentive to looking for allies on the current board, whatever race they are. One needn’t be the same race as another person to advocate to see the world the same way and to help bolster and amplify an argument. We think that that will only enhance the opportunity to create change over time. We think that at the board level, he needs to talk about the fact that even though this is currently a privately held company, this company may need to open itself up if it were to go public, if its industry or its business changes, getting a workforce that better represents the population of South Africa, that’s only going to be good for this company. We think it would be great if he were to consider joining or create a network of black executive directors so that when jobs come open at the company, or board positions come open at the company, he has names and relationships that he can try to leverage to get them into the organization.

ALISON BEARD: Dear HBR: I’m a young and new manager at my company. In my department, there’s another person who started at the same time as I did and performs the same role. We just work on different projects. Here’s the conflict. We both need to allocate tasks to subordinates in our group. And when we’re both working to meet deadlines, those subordinates seem overwhelmed. They aren’t sure who they should listen to or prioritize. Right now there’s a senior management position open. The other manager and I both want it. Our workplace is deeply political. Basically, only same-race staff members get promoted to top ranking positions, regardless of performance. Our company is predominantly managed by Vietnamese executives. Junior level people are Cambodian locals. I am one of only three Cambodian managers. My counterpart is Vietnamese. I’m the odd one out to get the job. I’m still in my probation period. My question is, how can I get the senior job? I don’t want to ruin my relationship with the organization, or the other manager. Or should I leave this company?

TINA OPIE: One of the things I’d be curious to know is just who hired this person? Are they actually at the firm? And if they still are, what advice would they give to this person? The second thing is, can you gather any information on what your reputation is at the firm? Do people think that you’re highly qualified? Do they think that you’re just hired because you’re Cambodian? And I’m not saying that that’s true. But I know for a fact people have thought, for example, you were just hired because you’re a woman, or because you’re black. What is the perception of, that other people have of you? The other thing is, has there ever in the history of this company been someone who was Cambodian and promoted? I think that’s a critical piece of information. Because if the answer is no, then there may be larger institutional factors and structures that you alone cannot address. If someone who is Cambodian has been promoted, was the perception that they were promoted based on their druthers? Or are they what we call in the literature a token, to satisfy some government or legal requirement they’ve promoted one Cambodian but have no intention of doing the same. So I realize that the reader may be wanting me to give some silver bullet answer, but in these kinds of situations, I find it really necessary to gather intelligence.

DAN MCGINN: This is complicated. There are three or four problems here. The first thing I see is that she’s still in her probation period, so above all else, I want her to succeed and get through probation so that she doesn’t leave so quickly that this job becomes a blight on her resume. So that’s number one. Number two, she’s got kind of a day to day conflict with this peer over this priority issue, whether subordinates should do her task or the other person’s task first. I’d like to think that that piece of it might be solvable with a conversation between the two of them. Look, you and I are both throwing a lot of tasks at the same group of people. We need to get on the same page about what’s number one, what’s number two, what’s number three. It’s not realistic for us to expect them to do it. The promotion, whether she’s promotable over the long term because of her being a Cambodian in a company that is typically run by Vietnamese, my first reference point on that actually goes apart from race or ethnicity, it goes to family business. Lots of family companies, if it’s Smith Brothers, Incorporated, if your name isn’t Smith, you can only get promoted so high. So that’s some of what she’s dealing with. People in that situation need to figure out whether that rule is breakable. Most family companies over time, nonfamily members do get to run the place. It’s a question of patience, whether you want to try to be the one that breaks that or not.

TINA OPIE: Those are great points.

ALISON BEARD: What struck me about this question is, she brought up the racial difference between her and this other manager when she talked about the promotion. But not when she was talking about the initial work conflict. And it strikes me that that has to play a role in solving that problem, too, because clearly if she looks like all the other more senior executives, the subordinates probably will do his work first.

DAN MCGINN: Or if the subordinates are all Cambodian, and she’s Cambodian, maybe they’re going to do what she says.

ALISON BEARD: That’s an interesting perspective, and I sort of take a more cynical view that actually, they’re going to do the work of the person who looks like all the executives. Tina, what do you think?

TINA OPIE: I can imagine that they would be more aligned with the Vietnamese supervisor. However, I mean, we’re hypothesizing here. I think you bring up a really good point. She’s in her probationary period. And I haven’t heard of too many people being promoted immediately after the probationary period.

ALISON BEARD: I, uncharacteristically wanted to look at this sort of as a glass half full. You know, I think in the US, if you are a very high performing minority woman, and there weren’t any women or minorities in management, you would actually be in a great position, because they would look at you and say, you are a terrific diversity candidate that we would like to promote that our executives ranks could be more diverse. And so, can she use it to her advantage”

TINA OPIE: I have mixed reactions. I think I’m sort of bothered by the idea that if there are no women or no minority candidates, that that can work to her advantage. I mean, there’s no women and no minority candidates for a reason. I mean, it’s intentional. It’s not as though, to my experiences, it’s not as though qualified women or underrepresented minorities have never applied. It’s that they were intentionally shut out and excluded. However, sometimes political correctness can move such to the point where an organization may say, we have to hire a woman. It looks bad that we don’t have a woman. But there’s research which talks about how horrible that trailblazer’s experience is. They are definitely a token. I mean, it’s really clear that the emotional, psychological, professional consequences of being the one and the only are very hard, and that burden is inordinately worn by that individual. So it may be an opportunity to get in the door, but it doesn’t mean that the door and the environment is welcoming or hospitable.

ALISON BEARD: that’s a great point. So you seem to be saying that maybe she should start looking elsewhere because even if she gets this promotion, it’s going to be a long, long road.

TINA OPIE: That is somewhat of what I’m saying. I’m saying that I think you can do, hold two things at the same time. Which is, you can try to persist and change the organization from within, but at some point, the battle can be fatiguing. And you have to think about your own health and wholeness, and it can be more palatable at times to leave. So I would be circulating my resume.

DAN MCGINN: Yeah, that seems like a lot of the questions we receive around lots of issues, I guess, but especially with regard to racism, the idea that there is this institutional barrier in place in the company I’m with now. At root, the question is sort of: do I try to fight to change it? Is it really changeable? Or should I just take my chips and go home, try something else, some other organization? And I think it’s a hard calculation.

TINA OPIE: It is. And I think there are things happening at three levels. So you have the individual, so you’re figuring out, can I deal with this? Is this going to drive me insane? But then there are interpersonal interactions, so can she go to a sponsor? But there’s also an institutional level, which is more challenging for, I mean, that is not something that individuals alone can always overcome. It’s definitely possible.

ALISON BEARD: And then once you’re there, prove them wrong and say, I’m not a token here, and I’m going to do a great job for this organization. And I’m going to wow all of you. And then pave the way for other people to come up through the ranks.

TINA OPIE: But now you really have described a superhero Cambodian worker. [LAUGHTER] I mean, you’re basically saying, I’m going to do my job. I’m going to prove these people all wrong. I’m going to manage to pave a path for all these other people. So I just want us to hear what we’re saying. She should wear a cape. [LAUGHTER] And she should fly in. And she needs bracelets because what we’re doing again, think about what it means to prove everyone else wrong in your workplace. Everyone is thinking that you’re not going to make it, that you’re not supposed to be there. Think about what that does to you, to your psyche.

DAN MCGINN: Tina, what do you think she should do in regard to this other manager who may end up getting the promotion and possibly be her boss in the not distant future?

TINA OPIE: I think as much as she can, work with that person, try to authentically connect with him, because statistically speaking he will be her boss in the future, and maybe he could be someone who would actually say, you know what? I worked with her. We were peers at one point. She should be at my level as well.

DAN MCGINN: So Alison, what are we telling this listener?

ALISON BEARD: So we think that her first step should be to gather information. What does the person who brought her into the organization think? What are the diversity ambitions of her organization? She needs to find out whether there truly is a path to advance for her. She should consider whether her race is playing into her initial conflict in terms of sharing subordinates with this other manager. She should understand that as one of three Cambodian managers now, and as someone seeking to be promoted to a senior level as the first Cambodian ever there, it’s going to be a very difficult road, not only just being that person in responsibility, but also trying to change the way the organization operates. She will want to be more than a token, but to do that, she might need to be a superhero, which is a tough act. So she should recognize that there may be too many institutional barriers at this company, and certainly start looking around to see if there might be a more hospitable company for her out there.

DAN MCGINN: Dear HBR: I work in finance for a small nonprofit organization in the US. I’m the only African American on our nine-person staff, although I also have Asian and Latino and Latina colleagues. After one of the recent police shootings of an African American male, I can’t remember which one, I was quite traumatized. I felt no one noticed or understood how I was feeling. My Latino boss sat me down and asked me how I was doing. Our discussion allowed me to actually breathe at work again. Often in our staff meetings, we set aside time to discuss how we personally relate to work issues. But we still don’t have a culture of discussing our feelings with each other. I find that quite sad as a culture. I’m impressed that my boss talked with me about this topic without belonging to the group that we immediately affected by it. How can I help him to push everyone to talk about these issues, race, immigration, MeToo? Even if they aren’t having the same deep response to the same causes.

TINA OPIE: Wow, that’s a great question, and what, I can so relate to this, because I have been in environments, I remember I was at a Christian retreat when the Trevon Martin verdict came down, and I looked at our son and daughter, and my husband and I, and we, you know, I’m welling up with tears, and no one talked about it. And I said: I have to leave. I have to get out of here. Because I was about to either bawl or erupt in anger because I was so, I felt so, this is not a word, but invisiblized, like people just didn’t get me. What I’m reminded of is a few things. One, it stands out to me that he talks about how his boss was emotionally intelligent enough and sensitive enough to pull him to the side and say, are you OK? And I think that’s a really amazing boss. So sort of shout out to the boss. I also noted that this gentleman said, we don’t have a culture of discussing our feelings at work. And from my experience, and from a lot of the research, that’s pretty symptomatic of most corporate workplaces. But I do think it’s sad when there are these traumas that we experience, where we’re not able to express them, and some people might say, well, just go to therapy. But at the same time, what is the role of the workplace in these kinds of situations? I don’t know that, I wonder what you all think.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, I came at this from a similar perspective in that sometimes events in the news, an unarmed teenager being shot, I as a mother, that really affects me. Lots of the news that was coming out with the MeToo movement, this really affected me. And I felt very lucky that I work in a place where I could come to work and say, did you see this? Isn’t it horrendous and crazy? And I can have a conversation. But I also, I’m in a workplace where I look like a lot of the people around me. And so, I wonder if this situation is different because when you come in, and you say, I’m feeling so strongly about this issue, does that make you stand out more in your organization? He clearly works in a diverse organization, but he’s the only African American. So if he’s the person coming in and saying, I really need to talk about all of these shootings, is he making himself more of an outlier, pointing to his difference in a way that won’t behoove him going forward.

DAN MCGINN: It made me remember how difficult and uncomfortable people tend to find even acknowledging race. We published some work back in 2011 by Michael Norton from Harvard Business School. He did this fascinating study where he had people partner up, and he had a grid of photos. There were 32 photos on the grid. Half of them were black. Half of them were white. And the partners were supposed to identify a certain photo to the other using the least number of sentences possible. And the obvious way to narrow it down was, is the person black or is he white? But no one would do that. Everybody was talking about eyebrows and shapes of ears and all sorts of other non-descriptors because no one wanted to talk about race. And this question reminded me of how fraught this issue feels for many people. They just don’t want to go there. And I admire the fact that this boss was willing to and that this person wants to find ways to support the boss to have more of these conversations.

ALISON BEARD: So I do agree that his manager has sort of seemed to create this opening for him, but he also mentions that his colleagues maybe aren’t having the same deep response to the same causes. And it can get uncomfortable if you’re saying, I really care so much about this. Don’t you also care? Please talk with me about it. So what would you advise him? How would you tell him to start the conversation or see if there is receptivity among his colleagues?

TINA OPIE: I would ask him to talk to his boss, honestly. Could he approach his boss and say, look, I really appreciated this one on one conversation that you had with me. Several others have been discussing it. And I’m wondering if we can have a broader conversation, because I think what’s happening is, we’re all talking about this in the break room, and it is affecting how we’re, it’s affecting our thought process. Some of us are worried. Some of us are really frightened. Some of us don’t quite understand what’s happening.

ALISON BEARD: And it’s making it hard for us to do our work.

TINA OPIE: Exactly. So it is actually detracting from our productivity. And so I think it could be helpful for you, for us as a team, as an organization to have this larger conversation.

ALISON BEARD: But then productivity is an issue, right? Because you can’t spend all your time talking about how you feel about what’s going on in the news. You actually do have to get your work done. So how do you find that balance?

TINA OPIE: So I think it’s important for us to recognize that as human beings, productivity can come crashing down when there are these traumatic events. I have noticed in my personal life when I am struggling with personal issues, or issues that are plaguing our society, I have to take a break. I think it’s important for us as individuals to recognize that — but also as leaders and managers — recognize that this could also be happening with my employees. It doesn’t mean that every single day is spent doing this, but how often do we allow our employees to sort of have an emotional catharsis and honestly share what they’re experiencing.

DAN MCGINN: Tina, is he going too far when he’s talking about pushing everyone to talk about these issues, whether they want to or not?

TINA OPIE: So he may be going too far in some people’s minds, but what I ask is, what’s the cost if we don’t go there? Often times, unfortunately, when these kinds of conversations are voluntary, you often end up preaching to the choir. So are you really getting the message to some of the people who might benefit the most? The verdict is out.

ALISON BEARD: But I think also the idea that some people might not be interested in talking about their feelings now, but once hearing their colleagues do so, it sort of builds that trust and that ability to share when they choose to down the line. I mean, Amy Edmondson, a professor at HBS who’s actually the guest on our next podcast, has published great work on psychological safety and how important that is for collaboration. And so this might be one way to do it.

TINA OPIE: Do they want to create a culture that feels psychologically safe? If that is, in fact, a goal, then this, again, may be another step towards addressing it at an organizational level to contribute to that type of culture.

ALISON BEARD: So Dan, what are we telling this man?

DAN MCGINN: First, we’re recognizing that it can be hard to talk about these things at work. People tend to feel that it’s risky and just not a place that some people want to go. At the same time, we commend his boss for sitting down and recognizing the trauma and recognizing that this was an issue that one on one they absolutely needed to deal with, and we commend our listener for recognizing that this is something that could be beneficial for the whole organization if they can find the right way to talk about it in a way that will help everyone and be productive. We do think that in a lot of cases, there’s a business issue here that when people get upset about events that are going on out in the world, it does affect who they are at work, and it affects their performance and their productivity, and when something like that’s going on, people need a chance to talk about it. We think that it will require emotional intelligence of everybody involved, but it does create an opportunity, and if it’s done well, it can probably improve the culture and climate in the organization. It can help people of all different backgrounds feel a little bit more connected to each other and it can help them move forward after this.

ALISON BEARD: Okay. Well, Tina, thanks so much for coming in and helping us work through these questions. They’re not the easiest problems to solve, but hopefully, we helped our listeners today.

DAN MCGINN: Thanks to the listeners who wrote us with their questions. Now we want to know your questions. Send us an email with your workplace challenge and how we can help. The email address is dearhbr@hbr.org.

ALISON BEARD: On our next episode, we’re going to be talking about dysfunctional teams with HBS professor Amy Edmondson.

DAN MCGINN: To get that episode automatically, please subscribe.

ALISON BEARD: And if you like the show, please give us a five-star review.